Vhalar 14 722
Eternity was high on reevi in her own home on a cold autumn morning. She loved how calm it made her feel and how it made the boring parts of her day seem to pass by quickly. It even made chores more bearable to do. Ever since she discovered the drug her usually dirty floor was free of junk and all her chores got done early in the morning. When everything was done she could just sit down and stare blankly out her window, which was exactly what she happened to be doing. This was when her mind was truly free to wander and think about whatever it pleased. It was how she came up with new ideas how to break into businesses and how to handle troublesome locks. Often times she would get hyped up for an idea but then realize it was dumb when she finally sobered up.
The newest idea in her head was centered around lockpicking tools. She wondered what she would do if she was ever in a situation where she needed them but didn’t have them. She’d gone through most of her life with at least a simple lock raking tool in her pocket, but what if even that had gone missing? She supposed the simplest answer was to just go home and get the tool she needed, but what if she was locked up?
“If I get arrested for stealing then is there any point to breaking out?” Eternity wondered. “If I get out then what, they’ll just come find me at my home and then I’ll probably be in double the trouble. I really ought to start wearing a disguise, but that would be so much work. None of my disguises have ever been very convincing. What was I thinking about again? Oh yes, what to do if I get locked up. No doubt they’ll take any tools I have on me. So it’d probably be impossible to get out.”
Eternity got distracted once more as she thought about what food in jail must be like and how long the sentencing would be for petty theft. She eventually realized her mind had wandered and struggled to remember what she’d originally wanted to know.
“Oh yea. No tools and locked up. Is it even possible to get out? I wonder if it’s possible to make a lock pick. I’ve never been to jail so I’m not sure what kinds of things would be available. I’d need something thin and sharp, exactly the kind of thing they probably wouldn’t let a prisoner have.” She groaned and massaged her head. There was just so much she didn’t know that it was hard to make a proper plan. She almost wished that she had been locked up at least once so she could know whether she’d at least be allowed to wear her own clothes. If so, then she could conceivably hide one of her smaller tools in them. She wasn’t sure how exactly, but she had a good feeling a seamstress would be able to fulfil such a request.
“Enough thinking,” she finally decided after her mind circled the same ideas three times. She went around her house looking for thin and sharp objects that might be useable as picks. She found a fork, some hair pins, a needle, a splinter of wood, and a writing utensil. The first step was to figure out if it was even possible to pick locks with these objects, then she would worry about how to hide them from a guard.
She started with a needle. She tried against some of her simplest of locks but even those were too difficult to unlock. She was excellent at opening locks with the proper tools but that didn’t mean she could just take a sharp point and make magic happen. She struggled with the easy locks for ten bits before giving up. Lockpicking required a lot of dexterity of the fingers. It required quick thinking and mental imaging of the lock. She had none of these things in her drugged-up state. She gave up out of frustration and decided to go for a walk.
The rest of the morning and early afternoon moved quickly for Eternity as it always did when she was high on reevi. She visited a bakery and ate some bread, sat in a park, and even went to the library. She wanted to look into how to grow her own reevi but she couldn’t find the right book. She was also too shy to ask the librarian about that kind of stuff. She’d asked someone for some answers a while back but he was unhelpful to say the least. She actually needed to go back there anyway to pick up some more reevi but she realized she was very low on liquid funds. That seemed to be another drawback of doing drugs. Eternity decided to go back home and take a long nap.
The reevi high had long since faded when Eternity woke in the early evening. That meant she could finally get to trying to pick open some locks with those sharp objects she’d collected earlier. “Maybe if I have some free time, I can go steal some coins,” she thought. “Though I really should look for another boyfriend. I’ve been single for way too long.”
Eternity found the needle a lot easier to use now that her mental faculties were in order. It was certainly harder to use than a tool specifically designed for picking but it was possible. She could push the pins in just the right way, though she couldn’t seem to pick the lock with the needle on its own. Most locks required multiple tools to open so she tried using the hair pin to help. Sweat beaded on her forehead and dripped slowly down the side of her face. It had been so long since she had faced a challenge when opening a lock so this was actually fun for her. It was like trying to learn lockpicking all over again, but with a handicap.
The simple lock eventually succumbed to Eternity’s skillful use of the improvised tools. It turned out that the needle and hair pins were the easiest to use. The sharp piece of wood was useless because it broke far too easily and the writing utensil was way too thick for the lock. It’d have to be sharped somehow, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to accomplish that in a jail cell so she just tossed it to the side.
“Now how could I hide a hair pin or needle? I wonder if they’d care to take things out of my hair… if they don’t then it’d be fairly simple to stick them in a bun. They’ll probably take everything out of my pockets so clothes are probably a bad place to hide things, unless I could somehow hide them in a secret pocket. Hm… how about I just always keep some hair pins in my hair when I’m out of the house? Needles are far too dangerous; I’d probably forget they’re there and then hurt myself when I lie down. Maybe if I make enough money I could hire a custom made outfit, though that’d probably raise suspicion. I ought to just make my own custom outfits, but I don’t know the first thing about modifying clothing. Perhaps another trip to the library is in order.” she couldn’t believe that she was even making preparations for getting caught. She’d finally accepted that it was only a matter of time before she slipped up or got desperate enough to go for higher value thefts. She didn’t even desire more money than she already brought in from her petty theft. What she did desire was some sort of challenge so she had a reason to keep getting better.
Eternity moved to the next lock and tried to use the hair pin and needle again but the needle had been altered from picking the last lock. The point had gotten dulled and the tip had curved a little. The pin was made of much stronger metal and was thicker but it had still bent a little. It was obvious that she wouldn’t be able to rely on improvised tools for more than a couple picks, unless she could somehow get some designed especially for her needs.
“How many locks could I possibly have to pick anyway? I’d have to deal with a door and maybe shackles… that should be it, right? Maybe I should’ve never thought about getting caught, it’s making me nervous.” There were simply too many unknowns for her to feel confident that she could escape a jail. She still thought that it was better to have something than nothing so when she set out for another night of thievery she made sure to stick a hair pin in her hair and wrap a few needles in cloth which she stuck in her pocket. Only time would tell if she would ever need them.
• Mature • Improvised Tools
Moderators: Pegasus Pug!!!, Avalon
- Eternity
- Approved Character
- Posts: 300
- Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2022 1:05 am
- Race: Human
- Profession: Thief
- Renown: 100
- Character Sheet
- Wealth Tier: Tier 5
Improvised Tools
Last edited by Eternity on Sun Mar 19, 2023 6:42 pm, edited 2 times in total. word count: 1552
| Skills used (0)
- Avalon
- Posts: 888
- Joined: Tue Dec 15, 2020 8:23 pm
- Race: Prophet
- Profession: Bootiful Bean
- Renown: 0
- Templates
- Point Bank Thread
- Wealth Tier: Tier 1
Re: Improvised Tools
Review & Rewards
Name: Eternity
Points awarded: 10
Magic xp: N/A
Knowledge:
Larceny: Hair pins and needles can pick simple locks
Meditation: Staying calm is easy when on reevi
Renown: N/A
Skill Review: Appropriate to level.
Notes:
Looks like Eternity is practicing her skills! Practice does make perfect.
So, lots going on here. The writing itself is lovely but I found the transitions between what she was doing a bit harsh. Smoothing those out with help flow a great deal and make everything feel less choppy, so to speak.
My main concern is that at expert level, most of this basic stuff will not challenge the pc. You alluded to the same in the piece, saying she hadn't been challenged for awhile. The mechanics of lock picking aren't really the 'challenge' anymore - and doing it from the safety of one's home certainly won't push her forward. Please remember that as a pc gains skill level, the challenges they need to face should be appropriate to that. For example, reevi would be a challenging element but you didn't focus on that for your knowledge in regards to larceny.
To this end, I'm denying four knowledge. I was on the fence about the meditation knowledge as she didn't actively practice meditation and was noting reevi's effects (seems more endurance or resistance-y to me) but I'll let it ride for this one review. As for larceny and tactics, being in a safe environment isn't conducive to gaining knowledge in either of these.
Please consider alternate knowledge for those four slots and pm me when you have them written up.
Thanks for the good read!
Avalon
word count: 305
| Skills used (0)